Once written off as lagging in the artificial intelligence race, Google has stunned the tech world with a dramatic comeback. After early blunders with its Bard chatbot and other AI products, the Mountain View-based giant has transformed from a hesitant follower into a front-runner in consumer-facing AI within a single year. Analysts who had downgraded Alphabet, Google’s parent company, are now calling its resurgence “short-sighted” to have ever been doubted.
Google’s initial response to ChatGPT came in March 2023 with Bard, a hastily launched rival that quickly drew ridicule for factual errors, including a much-mocked response about NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Even as the company poured billions into AI research and acquired DeepMind as far back as 2014, its consumer products repeatedly stumbled — from Bard’s early flubs to “AI Overviews” in search recommending glue pizza recipes and even eating a rock a day.
Faced with public missteps, Google initiated a sweeping reorganization in spring 2024. Co-founder Sergey Brin returned to the Googleplex as the company merged its AI units under the Google DeepMind banner, placing Nobel Prize winner Demis Hassabis at the helm. Chief Executive Sundar Pichai later explained that consolidating teams and rolling out Google’s own Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) were crucial steps in resetting the company’s AI trajectory.
By mid-2025, Google’s AI rollout looked very different. NotebookLM, a content-summarizing and podcast-creating tool, was followed by Veo 3, a powerful video generator unveiled at the Google I/O developer conference. The Pixel smartphone introduced 100x zoom and real-time translation powered by on-device AI, while YouTube added video generation in September. Analysts say these products show Google’s tools “working in the real world” rather than being just flashy demos.
Momentum continued this month as Gemini — Google’s flagship AI platform with integrated image editing tools — overtook ChatGPT in iPhone downloads. The company also won a key legal victory when a judge rejected a government push to break up its Chrome browser. In a potential game-changer, Apple is reportedly considering Gemini for its revamped Siri, signaling a new revenue stream for Google. While monetization remains an open question, industry watchers say Google is “playing the long game,” offering free services now to lock in users for future AI profits.
source: The guardian